1. Technical Field
One or more embodiments described herein relate generally to managing electronic documents. More specifically, one or more embodiments relate to tracking and facilitating review and signing of electronic documents using an electronic signature system.
2. Background and Relevant Art
Due to increased interconnectivity, the use of electronic documents has become popular and commonplace. It is no longer problematic for two geographically diverse parties to enter into a signed agreement as both parties can now easily convert a document into an electronic format, and then send the converted electronic document over the Internet. For example, a business in one geographic region can enter into a contract with another business in another distant geographic region merely by electronically signing the contract, and emailing the contract to the other business. In this way, parties can enter into software contract agreements, licensing agreements, maintenance and support agreements, rental agreements, insurance policy agreements, and so forth without utilizing traditional paper copies of the various documents associated with these agreements.
Conventional electronic document systems allow a user to upload and distribute an electronic document to multiple recipients for their review and signature. However, depending on the length and complexity of the electronic document, a reviewer may be required to spend many hours reviewing the electronic document prior to approving or signing the electronic document. Thus, with conventional electronic document solutions, a problem exists when a document owner sends an electronic document to a reviewer who does not have enough time in his schedule to appropriately review and sign the electronic document prior to a deadline. In particular, in conventional electronic document systems, the document owner typically has no way of knowing that a reviewer's schedule does not allow adequate time for the reviewer to review the electronic document prior to the electronic document's deadline.
Additionally, with conventional electronic document systems, reviewer may not plan enough time to review an electronic document. For example, a reviewer may accept an invitation to review an electronic document without understanding the complexity of the electronic document. Due to the inability of conventional systems to provide a reviewer an indication of the complexity of an electronic document, the reviewer is generally unaware of how long the electronic document will take to review. Accordingly, the reviewer may not plan for enough time to properly review the electronic document before the deadline for the document expires.
The inability of a document owner to understand the scheduling constraints of one or more document reviewers, and the inability of a document reviewer to understand an amount of time a document will take to review, often causes review deadlines to be missed within conventional electronic document systems. In addition, even when deadlines are not missed, a reviewer often rushes a review of a document to meet a deadline, which leads to inaccurate and mistake prone reviews. As such, users of conventional electronic document systems become frustrated and feel overwhelmed by the inability to properly schedule the review of important electronic documents.
Thus, there are several disadvantages to current methods for managing electronic documents that require review and signature prior to a deadline.